Hugo Horta

Verified

Hugo verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Hugo verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at The University of Hong Kong

The democratization of higher education through strategically driven science policies and higher education reforms is documented in this paper. These represent complementary policy actions oriented towards strengthening social, cultural and economic dimensions that allow higher education institutions (HEIs) to grow and to train graduates able to ad...

This study analyzes higher education research in Asia since the 1980s, based on internationally indexed publication data, focusing on research approaches and themes. The analysis is based on scientometrics, science visualization, and social network analysis measures and methods. We find an increase in the number of higher education publications in...

This study explores higher education research in Asia. Drawing on scientometrics, the mapping of science and social network analysis, this paper examines the publications of 38 specialised journals on higher education over the past three decades. The findings indicate a growing number of higher education research publications but the proportion of...

This paper analyzes the impact of academic inbreeding in relation to academic research, and proposes a new conceptual framework for its analysis. We find that mobility (or lack of) at the early research career stage is decisive in influencing academic behaviors and scientific productivity. Less mobile academics have more inward oriented information...

Focusing on the migration of academics in a globalized world, this chapter introduces the literature on international academic mobility and its positionality within higher education studies and the global higher education landscape. This chapter also discusses how academic mobility in Japan has been conditioned by institutional and national interna...

This chapter offers a historical evolution of globalization and its impact on Japanese society. It shows how Japan positions itself in face of geopolitical dynamics and geoeconomic ties and on how globalization has reshaped the ideology, national identity, and politics of the country. The changes and challenges in terms of economic interactions, po...

This chapter focuses on tenured participants’ distinctive work roles, responsibilities, and mobility experiences. These are identified based on the narratives and illustrations that exemplify how various capitals were appropriated, desired, and applied by the participants to achieve upward academic mobility to tenured positions in Japanese universi...

This chapter focuses on the participants’ social networks. The analysis evidences the key roles of transnational social network development, network embeddedness, and network maintenance. These roles are central to individual academic habitus and mobility agency development along personal transnational migratory trajectories. They are also critical...

Based on the synthesis of the data and analyses presented in previous chapters, a three-layered analytical framework for international academic mobility research is offered: the “Multi-transnational Academic Mobility and Migration Framework” (MAMMF). The MAMMF creatively and comprehensively illustrates how migrated academics are embedded in interlo...

This chapter concludes the book. We argue that there are three distinct upward academic mobility routes for migrated academics of diverse backgrounds in Japan. We also argue that individual social networks stretched along migrated academics’ life trajectories, mobility spaces, and migrated localities play a vital role in individual capital accumula...

Three distinct mobility routes of migrated academics to Japanese higher education are identified by analyzing the individual narratives and drawings of the interviewed migrated academics. These mobility routes are: (1) English-medium-instructed (EMI) liberal arts program teaching-focused lecturers, (2) Japanese doctorate holders, and (3) full-time...

The presidents of universities are increasingly perceived as key contributors to university performance, but their contribution has been analysed mainly from the perspective of research performance. Our study assesses the impact of university presidents on university performance considering a wider range of university performance indicators that in...

This is a website for the public to test and see what kind of researcher they are, using the MDRAI-R inventory. The website can be found here: http://bit.ly/3DAIleP

Along with the rapid massification of higher education in recent decades, there has been a steady development in the scale, qualifications, diversity and internationalisation of the academic workforce in China. To enhance universities’ international competitiveness and more effectively promote academic performance, the Chinese government has introd...

Amidst the intensified discourse surrounding universities' societal impact, social innovation and entrepreneurship (SIE) has emerged as a way to refocus universities' engagement in sustainable development, particularly through their core mission of teaching and learning. Growing interest in SIE education over the decades has led to a proliferation...

Dear Colleagues, You are cordially invited to join the hybrid Symposium co-organized by the Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre (TALIC) and the Consortium for Higher Education Research in Asia (CHERA): Student Engagement across Pacific Asia: Steps toward a shared framework. This symposium offers opportunities to meet speakers from institutions...

All fields of knowledge are challenged to adopt newer, more sophisticated methodologies to cope with growing complexity. Phenomena under study require further multidisciplinary and mixed methods collaborations to achieve expertise able to improve research strategies and practices. Furthermore, traditional methodological approaches face limits to th...

All fields of knowledge are challenged to adopt newer, more sophisticated methodologies to cope with growing complexity. Phenomena under study require further multidisciplinary and mixed methods collaborations to achieve expertise able to improve research strategies and practices. Furthermore, traditional methodological approaches face limits to th...

This article builds on the evolving relationship between science and society, focusing on the increasing emphasis on public participation in science decision-making processes. Public participation in science is often regarded as an embodiment of democratic principles that grant citizens the opportunity to engage with and influence scientific and te...

Peer review in journals is in crisis, and its current situation and sustainability are increasingly concerning for academics and scientific communities. We identify this crisis as part of an evolutionary step in the continuous development of science, arguing that peer review maintains a central role. We analyse the emergence and historical developm...

This study examines the influence of homophily on research collaborations across all scientific fields, noting the role of ascribed, acquired, geographical, current career, and educational and career history attributes. Our analysis builds on previous studies by adopting a comparative approach across scientific fields and examining the effect of ho...

Background Academic success is extremely important for international medical students enrolled in Chinese universities, as it affects their performance in their licence exams and future work opportunities. However, insufficient research has been conducted on university academic staff’s awareness of teaching-related factors that affect their student...

This paper employs the notion of a “career script” as a conceptual basis to examine how age-based academic career norms are internalized, strategized, and reproduced among PhD students aspiring to become academics. It draws on interviews with 70 PhD students at leading universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau that were organized and exp...

China has become an attractive destination for international medical students, particularly those from developing countries in Asia and Africa. These students are known to face difficulties in adapting to Chinese medical universities and they tend to score poorly on subsequent examinations to enter the medical profession in their home or in a third...

In recent decades, universities in East Asia have made efforts to integrate into scientific and academic global communities. These efforts have mainly been driven by national governments that increasingly perceive universities’ significant role in national innovation systems. Policymakers in East Asia have focused on building higher education capac...

Research productivity is a common topic in the literature, but peer reviewing for journals has received less attention, although it is a key activity of academic research. We help to fill this knowledge gap by assessing the determinants of peer review engagement and quality in scientific journals. We do so by analysing the combined information from...

Drawing on interviews with nine PhD students and twelve PhD graduates from a research university in Taiwan, this paper explores students' motivational profiles for pursuing a PhD at a time when that degree is increasingly decoupled from academic employment. Using self-determination theory as a conceptual lens, the paper identifies common enrolment...

Researchers have shown that the pursuit of doctoral studies is often related to the desire to become an academic, despite the constrained academic labour markets and changing (or deteriorating, as some have argued) academic working conditions (AWC) worldwide. In this study, we assessed the extent to which Chinese PhD students were aware of the chan...

The persistent gender inequalities in higher education are an ongoing concern among academics. This paper investigates how male and female academics perceive the need for gender-related changes to support academic women’s career advancement in China. Drawing on 40 interviews with male and female academics at a leading Chinese research university...

This chapter explores the responses of academics in mainland China and Hong Kong amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Using semi-structured interviews with 33 academics (17 in mainland China and 16 in Hong Kong), we find varying responses to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Academics in mainland China and Hong Kong had varied stances about the impact of...

In this study, we explore the identity development of PhD graduates transitioning into non-researcher roles. Through the conceptual lens of identity-trajectory theory and based on interviews with 26 PhD graduates from three leading research universities in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, we analyse their identity-trajectory development after their tra...

Phenomenon: China hosts a large number of international medical students from low-income countries, and some fail examinations in the early stage of the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) program. Little is known about how failing international medical students cope to recover their academic performance. It would be beneficial to i...

In recent decades, universities in East Asia have made efforts to integrate into scientific and academic global communities. These efforts have mainly been driven by national governments that increasingly perceive universities’ significant role in national innovation systems. Policymakers in East Asia have focused on building higher education capac...

Gender inequality and bias persists in academia worldwide despite remarkable progress in recent decades. This issue is underexplored in the context of Chinese academia. Drawing on 40 semi-structured interviews with male and female academics at a Chinese research university, this paper assesses the extent and manifestations of gender inequality, bia...

This study examines the procedures, criteria, and decision-making in doctoral admissions at China's leading research universities. A content analysis was performed on doctoral admissions texts (N = 312) from 264 faculties of C9 League universities, representing China's elite research-intensive universities. The results show that the admissions proc...

This article explores the experiences of male and female academics in China's higher education system concerning career progression and examines how they perceive the challenges faced by the opposite gender. Our analysis of interviews with 40 academics from a research university revealed that academics' experience of career progression is informed...

Continuing the advances made in the later parts of the 20th century, East Asian economies and their higher education systems rapidly evolved in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Most East Asian countries are categorized as advanced economies with developed societies; however, issues such as aging populations, debt levels, and decre...

Academic research has evolved tremendously over the last century. The middle of the twentieth century saw the development of research and the strengthening of trust both within academia and between academics and external actors. Since the later part of the twentieth century, however, the development of academic research has been characterised by re...

Publication pressure is perceived to be filtering down into doctoral education worldwide. We explore the causes and effects of the perceived centrality of publishing among doctoral students, emphasising the impact of publication pressure on students' identity trajectories. We draw on a qualitative analysis of 90 mainland Chinese doctoral students a...

This is the introduction to a special issue based on panel discussions held at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Consortium for Higher Education Researchers (CHER), which was hosted online by the University of Hong Kong. This collection of manuscripts embodies collaborative efforts by higher education researchers to understand topics of relevance t...

Research on the career trajectories of doctoral recipients often assumes that all PhD students begin in roughly the same starting position. Consequently, the impact of pre-programme experiences remains understudied. This qualitative study draws on 59 interviews with PhD students studying in mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the influence of l...

Academics have seen their work environment and routines severely affected by the Covid19 pandemic. This topic has been analyzed by the literature, mostly from personal and descriptive perspectives, that highlight the challenging transitions and adaptations that academics have endured concerning their work and life-balance. This research complements...

Background: Academic success of international medical students enrolled in Chinese universities is of great significance, because it directly influences their performance in the license exam and in obtaining a job. Insufficient research has been conducted on academics’ awareness of factors related to teaching that affect their students’ academic su...

The involvement of non-academics in academic research is key to boosting knowledge exchange and ensuring that academic research is more effective in contributing to tackling the challenges faced by organizations and citizens. Although incentives, together with new organizational and knowledge producing modes, have fostered this involvement, the lit...

Background: The number of international students who choose China as their destination for quality medical education is rising, particularly those from developing countries, but little is known about their adaptation and educational experiences at Chinese universities. This study explored the factors that these students perceived to have influenced...

In this study, we assess the association between academics' research agendas and their preferences for basic research, applied research, or experimental development. Using a sample of Mexican academics working in some of the country's most research-oriented universities, we identify three clusters. The largest is composed of applied research-orient...

In recent decades, universities in East Asia have made efforts to integrate into scientific and academic global communities. These efforts have mainly been driven by national governments that increasingly perceive universities’ significant role in national innovation systems. Policymakers in East Asia have focused on building higher education capac...

Most studies of academic inbreeding have focused on assessing its impact on scholarly practices, outputs, and outcomes. Few studies have concentrated on the other possible effects of academic inbreeding. This paper draws on a large number of studies on academic inbreeding to explore how the practice has been conceptualized , how it has emerged, and...

This study's principal objective was to explore the statistically predictive power of academics' research agendas for their job dissatisfaction beyond demographics. Five hundred and forty-seven academics from the eight publicly funded universities in Hong Kong responded to the Multi-Dimensional Research Agenda Inventory-12 (MDRAI-12) and the Job Di...

This study analyzes the association between the strategic research agendas of researchers in the social sciences and their research performance. Based on a worldwide sample of 604 researchers, this study assesses whether researchers’ strategic research agendas are predictors of both short-term (last 3 years) and long-term career publications and c...

In contemporary higher education systems, funding is increasingly associated with performativity, assessment, and competition, and universities are seeking different forms of financing their activities. One of these new forms is crowdfunding, a tool enabled by the digitalization of finance. Based on data from the UK higher education system and two...

This is the introduction to a special issue focused on offering new perspectives and analytical approaches to better understand academic inbreeding. The seven papers of this special issue offer original analyses and new avenues of research on this highly resilient social phenomenon in academic settings. The findings and arguments forwarded by these...

Research collaborations are the norm in science today, and are usually evaluated using co-authorships as the unit of analysis. Research collaborations have been typically analyzed using a mapping perspective that focuses on countries, institutions, or individuals, or by assessments of the determinants of research collaboration, i.e., who engages in...

Women academics have represented half of the academic body at Chinese higher education institutions since 2018. However, national and international scientific research on women academics in China has been limited, in contrast with the numerous international publications on women academics working in European, Oceanian, and North American higher edu...

This study explored factors that influence academics to collaborate in research with their doctoral students. It focused on Hong Kong academics, using data from the Academic Profession in Knowledge Society survey conducted in 2017–2018. The study found that academics’ research collaboration with doctoral students is influenced by several factors, i...

This paper explores how women academics in Chinese higher education have been understood as a topic of research by conducting a comprehensive review of publications on the theme in Chinese national academic journals, that is, national journals written in Chinese. The study identifies publication trends and key research issues concerning academic wo...

There is a growing need to support diversified career pathways for doctoral students. However, research on the determinants of doctoral students’ preferences to pursue future careers outside academia is still limited, or indeed is absent when careers in the government and nonprofit sectors (GNS) are considered. Using data from the 2019 Nature PhD S...

In recent years, increasing criticism has been levelled against case study based research on public engagement and participation in science and technology (PEST). Most critics argue that such case studies are highly contextual and fail to provide global, holistic and systemic views of public engagement phenomena. In this study, we mapped the case s...

Academic inbreeding is a phenomenon that has been studied mostly from the standpoint of its association with research productivity. The focus has been on knowledge creation outputs and outcomes, while little to no attention has been given to the association of academic inbreeding with knowledge creation strategies and processes in academia. This ar...

The study on which this article reports explored the role of education agents in international student mobility, developing a better understanding of how they operate, behave and think when dealing with the admissions processes of universities overseas. The behaviours and reasoning, the modus operandi, and positioning of education agents are analys...

Purpose How frequently may be advisable for a supervisor to meet a PhD student? Are PhD students more satisfied if supervised by someone of the same gender, nationality or with common research interests? Thus far, we lack quantitative evidence regarding similar crucial aspects of managing PhD supervision. The goal of this study is hence to investig...

Amongst all jurisdictions, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China has been one of the most effective in limiting cases of COVID-19, despite being one of the first places to be affected by the pandemic in early 2020. In the months since the first case was confirmed, COVID-19 has affected all aspects of Hong Kong society, including the...

As the global mobility of researchers increases, many of whom are supported by national funding agencies’ mobility schemes, there is growing interest in understanding the impact of this overseas mobility on knowledge production and networking. This study addresses a relatively understudied mobility—the temporary international mobility of PhD studen...

Purpose In studies of the research process, the association between how researchers conceptualize research and their strategic research agendas has been largely overlooked. This study aims to address this gap. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzes this relationship using a dataset of more than 8,500 researchers across all scientific fiel...

China is advancing in its bid to internationalize higher education, but little is known to date about the life satisfaction of overseas students in that country. Life satisfaction can be understood as the extent to which individuals’ experiences in a host country help them achieve their personal goals and satisfy their expectations regarding accult...

The presence of gender disparities in academia was assessed by analysing the characteristics of the research agendas of academics. Multivariate analysis of variance and structural equation modelling coupled with multi-group analysis were used to identify different gender trajectories. The research agenda preferences of women were less risky and les...

For more than a century, whether or not the research-teaching nexus exists has remained an intensely debated issue in the global academy at both the conceptual and empirical levels. Situating teaching styles within the context of teaching, conceptualizing research agendas as a dimension of research, and using academic self-efficacy as a mediator, t...

This study creates a novel inventory that characterizes factors influencing the research agendas of researchers in all fields of knowledge: the Multi-dimensional Research Agendas Inventory- Revised (MDRAI-R). The MDRAI-R optimizes an initial inventory designed for the social sciences (the MDRAI) by reducing the number of items per dimension, improv...

This study assesses how four types of mobility, which are analysed simultaneously, are associated with the current research output quality and visibility of academics working in the city-based higher education systems of Hong Kong and Macau. Transnational educational mobility is associated with the academics’ educational path, whilst intrasectoral...

Research agendas are understudied, despite being key to academic knowledge creation. The literature suggests that the ways that academics determine their research agendas are conditioned by individual, organisational and environmental characteristics. This study explores the cognitive aspects of academics' research agendas in the social sciences by...

Recent developments in higher education have placed greater emphasis on performance and accountability and raised concerns about increasing levels of stress among academics. Stress not only influences academic productivity but may also affect institutional commitment, which is key to guaranteeing academics’ organisational stability, identity and pe...

This paper assesses the evolution and current situation of the Chinese research system, mainly the academic research system from 1996 to 2017, using trend analysis and the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index. Despite the impressive growth of China's knowledge capability, as measured by the number of publications in the international indexed...

The demands for academic research placed on contemporary universities are closely related to the levels of innovative research they are expected to produce. Concurrently, both governments and university management strive to make the production of academic research more cost-efficient and have implemented measures to ensure this. Top-down policies i...

The time for completing a Ph.D. continues to be longer than desirable in most higher education systems worldwide. This is a concern for research funding agencies, universities, academics, and doctoral students facing increasingly constrained labour markets, particularly in academia. This study assesses the role of Ph.D. funding on the time to Ph.D....

Research agenda setting is a critical dimension in the creation of knowledge since it represents the starting point of a process that embeds individual researchers’ (and the communities that they identify themselves with) interest for shedding light on topical unknowns, intrinsic and extrinsic factors underpinning that motivation, and the ambition...

This research pioneered the investigation of the role of doctoral students' thinking styles in their program satisfaction and perceived intellectual competence. Participants were 285 STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students in Hong Kong. Results showed that students' thinking styles as measured by the Thinking Styles Inventory-...

Due to significant government cuts to Higher Education funding in Southern European systems, their already underfunded universities were forced to increasingly compete for students as sources of additional revenue. Concurrently, families and students that continued to afford participation in Higher Education became more selective when choosing a un...

At a time when the knowledge race is at its most intense, the scientific wealth of nations is increasingly relevant to ensure the preparedness and competitiveness of societies in a globalised, increasingly uncertain and integrated global knowledge economy. Scientific wealth also helps nations become resilient in the face of ever-growing knowledge a...

In a globalized world, universities face challenges adapting to changing environmental pressures and expectations of legitimacy. Studies on the topic have tended to focus on universities in North America and Europe, while Chinese universities have received less attention, perhaps due to their status as latecomers to global higher education. Based o...

The literature suggests that academic researchers with dual-appointment contracts, i.e. those employed concurrently by a university and an organization outside academia, have the potential to be more engaged in research collaborations with non-academic partners than colleagues contractually linked to a university only. Our results suggest that this...

This study explores the association between PhD students’ self-perception of skills and their career plans, which are analytically transformed into three non-academic sectors in relation to the academic sector (which serves as the baseline). Drawing on a representative sample of PhD students at a globally oriented research university in Asia (the U...

This article explores how the past mobilities of academics affect their current research output (and its multidisciplinarity). Five types of mobility are used simultaneously in the analysis. Field mobility and transnational educational mobility are associated with academics' educational path, whereas transnational job mobility, intra‐sectoral job m...

Purpose Global participation in higher education has expanded greatly since the late 20th century. The implications for the cultural, social, and economic fabric of societies have been substantial. To explain transitions from elite to mass higher education systems, theoretical insights from Technical-functionalism, Neo-institutionalism, World Acad...

This article focuses on the effects of PhD funding on research performance both during the degree and throughout researchers’ careers as measured through publications and citations. This analysis draws from a representative sample of researchers holding a doctorate based in Portugal and finds that those funded by grants during the PhD perform bette...

In this study, we analyse the relationship between competition and programmatic diversification in 75 Italian universities from the academic years of 2003/04 to 2011/12. Results show that local competition, rather than national competition, influences programmatic diversification. The relationship between local competition and programmatic diversif...

Higher education research in Asia is undergoing significant changes, but limited yet in terms of research community, active researchers, research themes and methodologies. This chapter introduces the book Researching Higher Education in Asia: History, Development and Future, which aims to explore the evolution of higher education research as a fiel...

The book demonstrates the rapid evolution of higher education research in most Asian countries, particularly in East Asia, in terms of both the number of researchers and publications and the diversity of research themes and methodologies. However, higher education research in some countries in Asia is comparatively underdeveloped, underlying an ine...

This book discusses higher education research as a field of study in Asia. It traces the evolution of research in the field of higher education in several Asian countries, and shares ideas about the evolving higher education research communities in Asia. It also identifies common and dissimilar challenges across national communities, providing rese...

This study analyses the university choices of male and female students in Italy over the 2003-2012 period, and for two sub-periods before (2003-2008) and after (2009-2012) the 2008 financial crisis. The analysis is guided by human capital, signalling and preference theories, and implemented through a competing destinations model that controls for t...

The aim of this study is to explore questions associated with the engagement of Asia-affiliated researchers in higher-education research published internationally. The contribution of Asia-affiliated researchers to the international higher-education research community is measured by analysing articles published in Scopus-indexed journals between 19...